One 77-year-old’s search for the truth: 9/11, election fraud, illegal wars, Wall Street criminality, a stolen nuke, the neocon wars, control of the U.S. government by global corporations, the unjustified assault on Social Security, media complicity, and the "Great Recession" about to become the second Great Depression. "The most important truths are hidden from us by the powerful few who strive to steal the American dream by keeping We the People in the dark."

“As things stand, the banks are the permanent government of the country, whichever party is in power.”

– Lord Skidelsky, House of Lords, UK Parliament, 31 March 2011)

On March 20, 2014, European Union officials reached an historic agreement
to create a single agency to handle failing banks. Media attention has
focused on the agreement involving the single resolution mechanism
(SRM), a uniform system for closing failed banks. But the real story for
taxpayers and depositors is the heightened threat to their pocketbooks
of a deal that now authorizes both bailouts and “bail-ins” –
the confiscation of depositor funds. The deal involves multiple
concessions to different countries and may be illegal
under the rules of the EU Parliament; but it is being rushed through to
lock taxpayer and depositor liability into place before the dire state
of Eurozone banks is exposed.

Under the deal, after 2018 bank shareholders will be
first in line for assuming the losses of a failed bank before
bondholders and certain large depositors. Insured deposits under £85,000
(€100,000) are exempt and, with specific exemptions, uninsured deposits
of individuals and small companies are given preferred status in the
bail-in pecking order for taking losses . . . Under the deal all
unsecured bondholders must be hit for losses before a bank can be
eligible to receive capital injections directly from the ESM, with no
retrospective use of the fund before 2018.

Under the new EU banking union, before the taxpayer-financed single
resolution fund can be deployed, shareholders and depositors will be
“bailed in” for a significant portion of the losses. The bankers thus
win both ways: they can tap up the taxpayers’ money and the depositors’ money.

The Unsettled Question of Deposit Insurance

But at least, you may say, it’s only the uninsured deposits that are at risk (those over €100,000—about $137,000). Right?

Not necessarily. According to ABC News,
“Thursday’s result is a compromise that differs from the original
banking union idea put forward in 2012. The original proposals had a
third pillar, Europe-wide deposit insurance. But that idea has stalled.”

European Central Bank President Mario Draghi, speaking before the
March 20th meeting in the Belgian capital, hailed the compromise plan as
“great progress for a better banking union. Two pillars are now in
place” – two but not the third. And two are not enough to protect the public.As observed in The Economist in June 2013, without Europe-wide deposit insurance, the banking union is a failure:

[T]he third pillar, sadly ignored, [is] a joint
deposit-guarantee scheme in which the costs of making insured depositors
whole are shared among euro-zone members. Annual contributions from
banks should cover depositors in normal years, but they cannot credibly
protect the system in meltdown (America’s prefunded scheme would cover a
mere 1.35% of insured deposits). Any deposit-insurance scheme must have
recourse to government backing. . . . [T]he banking union—and thus the
euro—will make little sense without it.

All deposits could be at risk in a meltdown. But how likely is that?

Pretty likely, it seems . . . .

What the Eurocrats Don’t Want You to Know

Mario Draghi was vice president of Goldman Sachs Europe before he
became president of the ECB. He had a major hand in shaping the banking
union. And according to Wolf Richter, writing in October 2013,
the goal of Draghi and other Eurocrats is to lock taxpayer and
depositor liability in place before the panic button is hit over the
extreme vulnerability of Eurozone banks:

European banks, like all banks, have long been
hermetically sealed black boxes. . . . The only thing known about the
holes in the balance sheets of these black boxes, left behind by assets
that have quietly decomposed, is that they’re deep. But no one knows how
deep. And no one is allowed to know – not until Eurocrats decide who is going to pay for bailing out these banks.

When the ECB becomes the regulator of the 130 largest ECB banks, says
Richter, it intends to subject them to more realistic evaluations than
the earlier “stress tests” that were nothing but “banking agitprop.”
But these realistic evaluations won’t happen until the banking union is
in place. How does Richter know? Draghi himself said so. Draghi said:

“The effectiveness of this exercise will depend on the
availability of necessary arrangements for recapitalizing banks …
including through the provision of a public backstop. . . . These
arrangements must be in place before we conclude our assessment.”

Richter translates that to mean:

The truth shall not be known until after the Eurocrats
decided who would have to pay for the bailouts. And the bank
examinations won’t be completed until then, because if any of it seeped
out – Draghi forbid – the whole house of cards would collapse, with no
taxpayers willing to pick up the tab as its magnificent size would
finally be out in the open!

Only after the taxpayers – and the depositors – are stuck with the
tab will the curtain be lifted and the crippling insolvency of the banks
be revealed. Predictably, panic will then set in, credit will freeze,
and the banks will collapse, leaving the unsuspecting public to foot the
bill.

What Happened to Nationalizing Failed Banks?

Underlying all this frantic wheeling and dealing is the presumption
that the “zombie banks” must be kept alive at all costs – alive and in
the hands of private bankers, who can then continue to speculate and
reap outsized bonuses while the people bear the losses.

But that’s not the only alternative. In the 1990s, the expectation
even in the United States was that failed megabanks would be
nationalized. That route was pursued quite successfully not only in
Sweden and Finland but in the US in the case of Continental Illinois,
then the fourth-largest bank in the country and the largest-ever
bankruptcy. According to William Engdahl, writing in September 2008:

[I]n almost every case of recent banking crises in which
emergency action was needed to save the financial system, the most
economical (to taxpayers) method was to have the Government, as in
Sweden or Finland in the early 1990’s, nationalize the troubled banks
[and] take over their management and assets … In the Swedish case the
end cost to taxpayers was estimated to have been almost nil.

Typically, nationalization involves taking on the insolvent bank’s
bad debts, getting the bank back on its feet, and returning it to
private owners, who are then free to put depositors’ money at risk
again. But better would be to keep the nationalized mega-bank as a
public utility, serving the needs of the people because it is owned by
the people.

[T]he financial sector needs more than just regulation;
it needs a large measure of public sector control—that’s right, the
n-word: nationalisation. Finance is a public good, far too important to
be run entirely for private bankers. At the very least, we need a large
public investment bank tasked with modernising and greening our
infrastructure . . . . [I]nstead of trashing the Eurozone and going back
to a dozen minor currencies fluctuating daily, let’s have a Eurozone
Ministry of Finance (Treasury) with the necessary fiscal muscle to
deliver European public goods like more jobs, better wages and pensions
and a sustainable environment.

A Third Alternative – Turn the Government Money Tap Back On

A giant flaw in the current banking scheme is that private banks, not
governments, now create virtually the entire money supply; and they do
it by creating interest-bearing debt. The debt inevitably grows faster
than the money supply, because the interest is not created along with
the principal in the original loan.

For a clever explanation of how all this works in graphic cartoon
form, see the short French video “Government Debt Explained,” linked here.

The problem is exacerbated in the Eurozone, because no one has the power to create money ex nihilo
as needed to balance the system, not even the central bank itself. This
flaw could be remedied either by allowing nations individually to issue
money debt-free or, as suggested by George Irvin, by giving a joint
Eurozone Treasury that power.

The Bank of England just admitted in its Quarterly Bulletin
that banks do not actually lend the money of their depositors. What
they lend is bank credit created on their books. In the U.S. today,
finance charges on this credit-money amount to between 30 and 40% of the
economy, depending on whose numbers you believe. In a monetary system
in which money is issued by the government and credit is issued by
public banks, this “rentiering” can be avoided. Government money will
not come into existence as a debt at interest, and any finance costs
incurred by the public banks’ debtors will represent Treasury income
that offsets taxation.

New money can be added to the money supply without creating inflation, at least to the extent of the “output gap” – the difference between actual GDP or actual output and potential GDP. In the US, that figure is about $1 trillion annually; and for the EU
is roughly €520 billion ($715 billion). A joint Eurozone Treasury could
add this sum to the money supply debt-free, creating the euros
necessary to create jobs, rebuild infrastructure, protect the
environment, and maintain a flourishing economy.

It is now apparent that the “Maiden protests” in Kiev were in
actuality a Washington organized coup against the elected democratic
government. The purpose of the coup is to put NATO military bases on
Ukraine’s border with Russia and to impose an IMF austerity program that
serves as cover for Western financial interests to loot the country.
The sincere idealistic protesters who took to the streets without being
paid were the gullible dupes of the plot to destroy their country.

Politically Ukraine is an untenable aggregation of Ukrainian and
Russian territory, because traditional Russian territories were stuck
into the borders of the Ukraine Soviet Republic by Lenin and Khrushchev.
The Crimea, stuck into Ukraine by Khrushchev, has already departed and
rejoined Russia. Unless some autonomy is granted to them, Russian areas
in eastern and southern Ukraine might also depart and return to Russia.
If the animosity displayed toward the Russian speaking population by the
stooge government in Kiev continues, more defections to Russia are
likely.

The Washington-imposed coup faces other possible difficulties from
what seems to be a growing conflict between the well-organized Right
Sector and the Washington-imposed stooges. If armed conflict between
these two groups were to occur, Washington might conclude that it needs
to send help to its stooges. The appearance of US/NATO troops in
Ukraine would create pressure on Putin to occupy the remaining Russian
speaking parts of Ukraine.

Before the political and geographical issues are settled, the Western
looting of Ukraine has already begun. The Western media, doesn’t tell
any more truth about IMF “rescue packages” than it does about anything
else. The media reports, and many Ukrainians believe, that the IMF is
going to rescue Ukraine financially by giving the country billions of
dollars.

Ukraine will never see one dollar of the IMF money. What the IMF is
going to do is to substitute Ukrainian indebtedness to the IMF for
Ukrainian indebtedness to Western banks. The IMF will hand over the
money to the Western banks, and the Western banks will reduce Ukraine’s
indebtedness by the amount of IMF money. Instead of being indebted to
the banks, Ukraine will now be indebted to the IMF.

Now the looting can begin. The IMF loan brings new conditions and
imposes austerity on the Ukrainian people so that the Ukraine government
can gather up the money with which to repay the IMF. The IMF
conditions that will be imposed on the struggling Ukraine population
will consist of severe reductions in old-age pensions, in government
services, in government employment, and in subsidies for basic consumer
purchases such as natural gas. Already low living standards will
plummet. In addition, Ukrainian public assets and Ukrainian owned
private industries will have to be sold off to Western purchasers.

Additionally, Ukraine will have to float its currency. In a futile
effort to protect its currency’s value from being driven very low (and
consequently import prices very high) by speculators ganging up on the
currency and short-selling it, Ukraine will borrow more money with which
to support its currency in the foreign exchange market. Of course, the
currency speculators will end up with the borrowed money, leaving
Ukraine much deeper in debt than currently.

The corruption involved is legendary, so the direct result of the
gullible Maiden protesters will be lower Ukrainian living standards,
more corruption, loss of sovereignty over the country’s economic policy,
and the transfer of Ukrainian public and private property to Western
interests.

If Ukraine also falls into NATO’s clutches, Ukraine will also find
itself in a military alliance against Russia and find itself targeted by
Russian missiles. This will be a tragedy for Ukraine and Russia as
Ukrainians have relatives in Russia and Russians have relatives in
Ukraine. The two countries have essentially been one for 200 years. To
have them torn apart by Western looting and Washington’s drive for world
hegemony is a terrible shame and a great crime.

The gullible dupes who participated in the orchestrated Maiden protests will rue it for the rest of their lives.

One final word. Despite unequivocal evidence of one country after
another being looted by the West, governments of indebted countries
continue to sign up for IMF programs. Why do governments of countries
continue to agree to the foreign looting of their populations? The only
answer is that they are paid. The corruption that is descending upon
Ukraine will make the former regime look honest.

Published on Mar 11, 2014http://usawatchdog.com/united-states-... - Economist Dr. Paul Craig Roberts says, "The physical stock of gold in the West to meet delivery demand is diminishing rapidly. So, one day the Chinese will buy 100 tons of gold, and we won't be able to make delivery. That would crash the system. It would just pop. So, there are things that could crash it suddenly. Regardless . . . the economy is going to gradually sink because there are no jobs, or no good jobs. . . So, there is not a recovery. The U.S. is a busted state. It's completely busted."On the Federal Reserve money printing to prop up the economy, Dr. Roberts, who has a PhD in economics, contends, "I think they realize all the money printing does undermine the dollar, and if they lose the dollar, the game is over. So, they have to protect the dollar."Join Greg Hunter as he goes One-on-One with former Assistant Treasury Secretary Dr. Paul Craig Roberts, author of the new book "How America was Lost."

The Crimean peninsula was controlled by the Russian Empire from the
18th to 20th centuries until it became part of an independent Ukraine
following the breakup of the Soviet Union in 1991. Now the country is
fractured after months of protests, and Crimea has become the reluctant
focal point of a nascent civil war dividing east and west. Fueled by
aggressive posturing by the United States and a defensive-minded Russia
intent on protecting the interests of Ukraine's ethnically Russian
population, the situation has escalated quickly. The future of the
European continent hangs in the balance.Even to the most astute observer, the current crisis in the
southeastern region of Ukraine is difficult to interpret. The view can
be blurred by geographic distance, muddled by inconsistent reporting and
blinded by prejudice. Because of treacherously unremitting digital and
social media, an understanding of the complex sociopolitical elements is
diluted; independent inquiry loses legitimacy and critical voices enter
an anarchic fray. How can one make sense of this dilemma?

"What has happened in Ukraine is the United States organized and financed a coup."

Paul Craig Roberts is a former assistant secretary of the treasury and associate editor of The Wall Street Journal.
He has been following the situation in Ukraine closely and spoke to
Truthout about the long history of the crisis, the influence of the
mainstream media (in which he worked for decades) and the dangerous
provocations of Western leaders. The author of more than ten books, his
most recent work is called The Failure of Laissez Faire Capitalism. This interview took place on March 12, 2014.You have written extensively about the current standoff
between Russia and the West over the situation in Crimea. How do you
assess the current situation? What power struggle is currently
unraveling?Well, I think it would be a mistake to represent the events in Crimea
as a power standoff between Russia and the United States. What has
happened in Ukraine is the United States organized and financed a coup.
And the coup occurred in Kiev, the capital. Either from intention or
carelessness, the coup elements include ultra-right-wing nationalists
whose roots go back to organizations that fought for Hitler in the
Second World War against the Soviet Union. These elements destroyed
Russian war memorials celebrating the liberation of the Ukraine from the
Nazis by the Red Army and also celebrating Gen. Kutuzov's defeat of
Napoleon's Grande Armée. So this spread a great deal of alarm in
southern and eastern Ukraine, which are traditionally Russian provinces.
Crimea was added to the Ukraine in 1954 by Khrushchev, the general
secretary of the Communist Party. Both of these Russian areas have been
part of Russia for longer than the United States has existed. This may
have been done to water down the pro-Nazi elements in western Ukraine,
because it added a substantial Russian population to Ukraine that tended
to balance out the ultra-nationalists in the west. Also, Khrushchev
himself was a Ukrainian. It didn't make a difference at the time because
it was all part of the Soviet Union. When the Soviet Union collapsed as
a political entity and the weak authorities there - under [US] pressure
– agreed to its breakup, the Ukraine became independent, but it
retained the previously Russian provinces. The population in Crimea is
predominantly Russian, and so is eastern Ukraine. These people said, "We
don't want anything to do with this government in Kiev, which is
banning our language and destroying our war monuments and threatening us
in many ways." They followed the same legal steps; the same UN
procedures, the same international court procedures. So everything that
has occurred is strictly legal. And when John Kerry and Obama say the
opposite, they're lying through their teeth. It's just blatant,
shameful, bald-faced lies. This is not debatable or a question of
opinion. It's a matter of law.

"So there is not an independent media. It cannot take positions on any important issue contrary to the government's propaganda."

So the Parliament in Crimea followed these procedures and has now
declared Crimea to be independent. The vote that [was] given to the
people on [March 16] . ... So there has been no Russian invasion. That's
easily provable. The Russian troops in the Ukraine have been there
since the 1990s. It has to do with the lease arrangements it has on its
Black Sea naval base [Sevastopol], because when Ukraine was granted
independence, Russia certainly wasn't giving up its warm-water port. The
terms of the separation state that Russia has a lease there until 2042.
Sixteen thousand troops were there, and under the agreement with the
Ukraine they can have up to 25,000 along with a certain number of
planes, tanks and artillery. All this is specified and well-known, but
it is subject to lies from Washington - and they are repeated endlessly
in the so-called American media. The remaining problem is in eastern
Ukraine, because there the people are also in the streets demanding
their local governments separate from Kiev. Having realized its
incompetence in Crimea, Washington has rushed in and appointed Ukrainian multi-billionaire oligarchs
[Igor Kolomoisky and Serhiy Taruta] as governors of these Russian
regions [Donetsk and Dnepropetrovs]. Where the issue will be drawn is in
eastern Ukraine because Putin has said he will make no military
intervention unless violence is used against the Russian population in
eastern Ukraine. There isn't much Kerry and Obama can do about this. But
if the result is that eastern Ukraine returns to Russia, western
Ukraine will be captured, subject to an IMF [International Monetary
Fund] austerity plan, looted by the Western banks and stuck in NATO
while US anti-ballistic missile bases will be put in western Ukraine.
This is intensifying the strategic threat to Russia that Washington has
been pursuing since the George H.W. Bush regime when he violated the
agreements that Reagan had given not to take NATO into eastern Europe.
These same agreements were violated when Washington withdrew from the
ABMT [Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty] in 2002 so it could construct an
anti-ballistic missile defense. These are extreme provocations, and they
are reckless. It's the same kind of behavior that gave us the First
World War.In your latest writings you've discussed the failure of the
so called mainstream or American media in reporting about Crimea
objectively - that is, without displaying a bias toward one side or the
other. Can you discuss the role alternative media has played in relation
to the crisis in Ukraine?A very important part of it has to do with something that happened
toward the end of [Bill] Clinton's second term. He permitted five mega
companies to consolidate the formerly independent and dispersed US
media. What were once independent networks like ABC, CBS, NBC, CNN, they
all became cogs in a larger media empire. The value of these big media
companies is their federal broadcast licenses: They can't go against the
government and expect them to be renewed. Another big change is these
media companies are no longer run by journalists. They're run by
corporate advertising executives and former government officials. And
their only interests are protecting the net worth of the company and the
flow of advertising revenues. So there is not an independent media. It
cannot take positions on any important issue contrary to the
government's propaganda. That's part of the problem right there.Another part of the problem is that during the long Cold War, the
Soviet Union, which is Russia in most people's minds, was demonized
effectively. This demonization persists. Remember, the initial collapse
of the USSR worked very much to the West's advantage. They could easily
manipulate [Boris] Yeltsin, and various oligarchs were able to seize and
plunder the resources of the country. Much Israeli and American money
was part of that. When Putin came along and started stopping this and
trying to put the country back in place, he was demonized. Also, just as
Victoria Nuland, the assistant secretary of state [for European and
Eurasian Affairs], admitted when she spoke at the National Press Club last December,
the United States has invested $5 billion aligning Ukraine with its
interests since the failed Orange Revolution [2004]. They've probably
spent many times that on NGOs inside Russia. There are at least 1,000
non-governmental organizations in the country that are financed by
Washington. This has persisted for a long time, and it was only last
year when Putin finally said that these organizations that are financed
by US money must register as foreign agents. This is, of course,
American policy. If you operate here with foreign money - unless you're
Israel - you must register as a foreign agent. Yet when Putin applied
the same rules, he was demonized. So you have everywhere this exposure
across American generations of people to propaganda that diabolizes
every aspect of Russia. So if someone tells you the Russians sent the
tanks into Crimea, it just fits a pre-existing narrative.

"The Soviet Union and Communist China existed, and these were huge
constraints on American power. The US couldn't go waltzing in blowing up
countries throughout the Middle East for example."

I am a former editor of The Wall Street Journal and a
columnist at all the major publications as well, and I personally
witnessed the change in the media and the people in it. So I already
know what they're going to say; I can write the scripts before they go
on and mouth them. It's been going on for some time. A similar thing
happened with the Iraqi weapons of mass destruction. It was a lie told
over and over. And everyone repeated it. The New York Times
didn't even go to the weapons inspector we sent to Iraq, Hans Blix!
Instead, Judith Miller repeated a lie endlessly in the pages of the
newspaper. It reflects a total lack of integrity. One of the main
reasons for this is that many of them know they cannot tell the truth,
otherwise they'll be fired. They know it's pointless to take a story
that contradicts the president or the secretary of state or the CIA or
the NSA to the editor. He or she will look at you and say What are you
crazy? Do you want to get us both fired? So they simply don't bother.
It's quite a corrupt milieu, and it must be deadening to the soul. But
that's what it is to be a mainstream journalist today.Looking back on your time as assistant secretary of the
treasury under Ronald Reagan, how have the global politics of
brinkmanship changed? Are foreign conflicts perceived differently now
than ever before?Oh, yes, it's changed tremendously, in two critical ways. One is the
Soviet Union and Communist China existed, and these were huge
constraints on American power. The US couldn't go waltzing in blowing up
countries throughout the Middle East, for example. Those constraints on
American power no longer exist. The Cold War is gone, and the alliances
that were part of it have disappeared. When I was in the Reagan
administration, the neoconservatives had not emerged as the ideological
force that they are today; they had not written their position papers
calling for American world hegemony. So there was not an agenda in
Washington or in the Reagan administration of American hegemony over the
world. Reagan's approach toward Gorbachev was not to win the Cold War,
he told us repeatedly. The point was to end it. The neoconservatives did
emerge first during that time, but they had nowhere near the same power
or influence that they did under Clinton, George W. Bush and now Obama.
In fact they caused so much trouble for [Reagan], he fired every one of
them. They were behind the Contras in Nicaragua. Some of them were
actually prosecuted and convicted - such as Elliot Abrams, who was
assistant secretary of state. He and others were later pardoned by
George H.W. Bush, but the Reagan administration itself took very strong
action against neoconservatives. They were fired, thrown out of the
government. Richard Perle was even thrown off of the [President's
Intelligence Advisory Board]. The neoconservatives emerged with the
American attacks on Serbia - what we call the NATO attacks - and the
theft of Kosovo from Serbia and its setup as an American protectorate.
Their influence then exploded in the first years of George W. Bush. The
entire national security apparatus, the entire Pentagon, the entire
State Department were all staffed-up by neoconservatives. The agenda was
there. It had been set out in papers from the Project for the New
American Century, and much of the government was run by its
representatives. The Obama administration has many of the same people,
but now they're able to go further because they have more resources to
fund dissent groups like we've seen in Ukraine.

"There's no evidence that the American people support Washington's
meddling in Ukraine. And they should get out and protest it, because it
could mean a major war and even the use of nuclear weapons."

This is a reckless thing to do. The Russians cannot accept strategic
threats of this sort; it's just too high. I think what Putin is relying
on, if you read his March 4 press conference,
is the Europeans. Since they don't have an ulterior agenda, they don't
want to pay the cost of enabling the United States to start a war,
because it will affect them. The Russians know the United States has
changed its war doctrine to include nuclear weapons, which shifted in
2010 to permit pre-emptive first strikes. Well the Russians know this is
not directed against Afghanistan or Iraq, but against them. When you
keep telling a powerful country you are going to set it up in such a way
that it must be attacked, that is purely reckless behavior.What can average people do to voice their concerns about the issues you've raised? How will the crisis evolve from here?They ought to get out into the streets. There's no evidence that the
American people support Washington's meddling in Ukraine. And they
should get out and protest it, because it could mean a major war and
even the use of nuclear weapons. The US government has violated every
norm of international law and almost the entirety of American law. It is
tyranny. Another point: according to Obama and Kerry, and the
mainstream media, Russia is to be damned for intervening in the Crimea.
This we've all heard since the situation began. Well, [March 11] Obama
and Kerry demanded that Russia intervene in Crimea and block the
self-determination of the Crimean people. They asked Russia to stop the
referendum! So now, out of one corner of its mouth, Washington is
damning them Russia for an intervention they didn't make, and out of the
other corner of its mouth, it's demanding they intervene and deny the
people of Crimea the right to self-determination. And if they don't do
that, Kerry said, We will make you pay. This is blatant. And there isn't
a word about it in the major newspapers.

HARISON SAMPHIRHarrison Samphir is an editor and writer based in Winnipeg, Manitoba, Canada. He holds a B.A. (Hons.) in history from the University of Manitoba. Email him at hsamphir@gmail.com or follow him on Twitter @HarrySamphir.

Russia 1, Regime Changers 0

John Kerry: War and Sanctions for Russia over Ukraine(image by YouTube)

Let's cut to the chase -- short and sweet.

1. The Obama administration's "strategic" gambit to subcontract the
State Department's "Khaganate of Nulands" to extricate Ukraine from the
Russian sphere of influence -- and ultimately annex it to NATO -- by
instrumentalizing a coalition of willing neo-nazis and fascists with a
central bank veneer (prime minister "Yats"), is in utter shambles.

2. Moscow's counterpunch was to prevent in Crimea -- as intercepted by
Russian intelligence -- a planned replay of the putsch in Kiev. The
referendum in Crimea -- 85% of turnout, roughly 93% voting for
re-joining Russia, according to exit polls -- is a done deal, as much as
the oh-so-democratic European Union (EU) keeps threatening to punish
people in Crimea for exercising their basic democratic rights. (By the
way, when the US got Kosovo to secede from Serbia, Serbians were offered
no referendum).

3. The main rationale for the whole US "strategic" advance -- to
have their proxies, the regime changers in Kiev, cancel the agreement
for the Russian naval base in Sevastopol -- is up in smoke. Moscow
remains present in the Black Sea, and with full access to the Eastern
Mediterranean.

And the rest is blah blah blah.

All aboard the Finland station

The US State Department
has practically agreed to a federal, and in fact, Finlandized Ukraine[1]
which, by the way, is the solution being proposed by Russian Foreign
Minister Sergey Lavrov right from the start, as this Russian white paper attests.
US Secretary of State John Kerry -- as when Moscow saved the "red line"
Obama administration from bombing Syria -- will go on overdrive to
steal all the credit from the Russians. US corporate media will duly buy
it, but not independents such as Moon of Alabama.[2]

This -- sensible -- road map implies, among other crucial points;
strong autonomous regions; Russian reinstated as an official language,
alongside Ukrainian; and most of all political/military neutrality, that
is, Finlandization. To get there will be the mission of a support group
-- once again, proposed by Moscow from the start -- with the US, EU and
Russia as members.

All that finally sanctified by a UN Security Council resolution (true,
it could go spectacularly wrong, and most of all sabotaged by the
"West.") And all that, as well, without Moscow having to officially
recognize the regime changers in Kiev. In a nutshell; Moscow called
Washington's bluff -- and won.

So after all that barrage of ominous threats including everyone from
Obama, Kerry and assorted neo-con bomb-firsters down to minions such as
Cameron, Hague and Fabius, the meat of the matter is that the Obama
administration concluded it would not risk a nuclear war with Russia for
the Khaganate of Nulands -- especially after Moscow made it known,
discreetly, it would create the conditions for eastern and southern
Ukraine to also secede.

Sweden, for instance, proposed an arms embargo on sales to Moscow.
Paris took a quick glance at its industrial-military complex interests
and immediately said no. Only the brain dead entertain the notion Paris
and Berlin are willing to jeopardize their trade relations with Russia.
As well as the notion that Beijing would ever join sanctions against
fellow Group of 20, BRICS and Shanghai Cooperation Organization member
Russia just because what they perceive as an increasingly irrational --
and dangerous -- Washington said so.

And yet, Western hysteria of course will persist unabated. In the US,
where it matters, the meme of the subsequent days will be, inevitably,
who lost Syria and who lost Ukraine.

Here's the record. Dubya launched two wars. He (miserably) lost both.

Obama attempted to launch two wars (Syria and Ukraine). He -- lucky for
him -- lost both even at the "attempt" stage. Assorted neo-cons and the
whole exceptionalist brigade are predictably livid. Expect the
editorial page of the Wall Street Journal to go ballistic. And expect US
ambassador to the UN Samantha "R2P" Power to wish she were Sinead
O'Connor singing Nothing Compares to You.

It's a gas, gas, gas, not!

The Kiev regime-changers are
already announcing their intentions, as in Right Sector capo and
confirmed neo-nazi Dmytro Yarosh saying, "... Russia makes money sending
its oil through our pipelines to the West. We will destroy these
pipelines and deprive our enemy of its source of income."

That's a brilliant strategy straight from the Khaganate of Nulands
playbook. So homes and the whole industrial base in Ukraine should be
out of (cheap, discounted) gas, not to mention great swathes of Germany,
so the neo-nazis can claim "victory." With friends like these...

Gazprom's executives are not exactly raising an eyebrow. Russia is
already shipping roughly half of its gas to Europe, bypassing Ukraine,
and after South Stream is completed in 2015, that percentage will
increase (EU "sanctions" against South Stream are just empty rhetoric.)

The regime changers will be trying to wreak havoc in other fronts as
well. The new Ukrainian parliament has voted to assemble a 60,000-strong
National Guard crammed with "activists." Guess who will be in charge;
the new security chief, Andriy Parubiy, one of the founders of the
neo-nazi Social-National Party. And his deputy happens to be none other
than Yarosh, the leader of the paramilitary Right Sector. Feel free to
add your own custom-made Hitlerian metaphors -- even as the risk
persists of Ukraine breaking apart. Which is not necessarily a bad deal.
Let the "democratic" EU pay Ukraine's gas bills.

Pepe Escobar is the roving correspondent
for Asia Times. His regular column, "The Roving Eye," is widely read. He
is an analyst for the online news channel Real News, the roving
correspondent for Asia Times/Hong Kong, an analyst for RT and
TomDispatch, and a frequent contributor to websites and radio shows
ranging from the US to East Asia. He argues that the world has become
fragmented into "stans" -- we are now living an intestinal war, an
undeclared global civil war. He has published three books on
geopolitics, including the spectacularly-titled "Globalistan: How the
Globalised World Is Dissolving Into Liquid War".
His latest book is "Obama Does Globalistan."

Published on Feb 22, 2014Stefan Molyneux speaks with Dr. Paul Craig Roberts about the violent protests in Ukraine, evidence that the United States is fueling the conflict with taxpayer dollars and the dangerous game that is being played in the attempt to install military and missile bases on the Russian border.Dr. Paul Craig Roberts was Assistant Secretary of the Treasury for Economic Policy under Ronald Regan and is a former associate editor of the Wall Street Journal. Dr. Roberts is the author of "How America Was Lost: From 9/11 to the Police/Warfare State" which you can order at: http://www.fdrurl.com/LostAmericaFreedomain Radio is 100% funded by viewers like you. Please support the show by signing up for a monthly subscription or making a one time donation at: http://www.fdrurl.com/donateBitcoin Address: 1Fd8RuZqJNG4v56rPD1v6rgYptwnHeJRWsLitecoin Address: LL76SbNek3dT8bv2APZNhWgNv3nHEzAgKTGet more from Stefan Molyneux and Freedomain Radio including books, podcasts and other info at: http://www.freedomainradio.com

Dear readers: I recalled correctly from my Russian
studies a half century ago that Soviet leaders had stuck Russian
territories into Ukraine, but I mistakenly attributed all of the
transfers to Khrushchev. The first gifts of Russian territory to
Ukraine were made by Lenin.
- PCR

The New Russia

An Interview With Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn,” by Paul Klebnikov, in the May 9, 1994, issue of Forbes magazine

With Russia in chaos, it does sound a bit far-fetched to see her as an aggressor.

Russia today is terribly sick. Her people are sick to the point of
total exhaustion. But even so, have a conscience and don’t demand
that – just to please America – Russia throw away the last vestiges of her
concern for her security and her unprecedented collapse. After all, this
concern in no way threatens the United States.

Former U.S. National Security Adviser Zbigniew Brzezinski
disagrees. He argues that the U.S. must defend the independence of
Ukraine.

In 1919, when he imposed his regime on Ukraine, Lenin gave her
several Russian provinces to assuage her feelings. These provinces have
never historically belonged to Ukraine. I am talking about the eastern
and southern territories of today’s Ukraine.

Then, in 1954, Khrushchev, with the arbitrary capriciousness of a
satrap, made a “gift” of the Crimea to Ukraine. But even he did not
manage to make Ukraine a “gift” of Sevastopol, which remained a separate
city under the jurisdiction of the U.S.S.R. central government. This
was accomplished by the American State Department, first verbally
through Ambassador Popadiuk in Kiev and later in a more official manner.

Why does the State Department decide who should get Sevastopol? If
one recalls the tactless declaration of President Bush about supporting
Ukrainian sovereignty even before the referendum on that matter, one
must conclude that all this stems from a common aim: to use all means
possible, no matter what the consequences, to weaken Russia.

Why does independence for Ukraine weaken Russia?

As a result of the sudden and crude fragmentation of the intermingled
Slavic peoples, the borders have torn apart millions of ties of family
and friendship. Is this acceptable? The recent elections in Ukraine, for
instance, clearly show the [Russian] sympathies of the Crimean and
Donets populations. And a democracy must respect this.

I myself am nearly half Ukrainian. I grew up with the sounds of
Ukrainian speech. I love her culture and genuinely wish all kinds of
success for Ukraine–but only within her real ethnic boundaries, without
grabbing Russian provinces.

Washington, enabled by its compliant but stupid NATO puppets, is pushing the Ukrainian situation closer to war.

German Chancellor Merkel has failed her country, Europe, and world
piece. Germany is the strength of the EU and NATO. Had Merkel said
“No” to sanctions on Russia, that would have been the end of the crisis
that Washington is brewing, a crisis unlikely to be ended short of war.

But Merkel has signed away the sovereignty of the German nation and
assigned the fate of Germany to a province in the American Empire. Thus
has Merkel and the weak German leadership consigned the world to war. Already blamed for World
War 1 and World War 2, now Germany will be blamed for World War 3.

Washington’s mismanaged Ukrainian coup has cost Washington Crimea,
which Washington wanted most of all in order to deprive Russia of its
warm water naval base on the Black Sea. In addition, the mismanaged
overthrow of an elected government in Ukraine is threatening to also
lose the Russian cities of eastern Ukraine. Like Crimea, eastern
Ukraine consists of former Russian areas that Khrushchev stuck into
Ukraine in the 1950s.

In what is clearly a fruitless and pointless effort to get Crimea
back, Washington is demanding that Russia interfere in Crimea and
prevent Crimea from seceding from Ukraine. If the Russian government
refuses to follow Washington’s orders, Washington has announced that it
will inflict “damaging sanctions” on Russia. Initially, EU countries
expressed an unwillingness to go along with Washington, but with bribes
and threats, Washington has conquered Merkel and has its European
puppets lined up following orders.

Washington understands that economic sanctions are a far less threat
to Russia than the loss of its Black Sea naval base. Washington also
understands that Putin cannot possibly abandon the millions of Russians
in eastern and southern Ukraine to the mercy of the anti-Russian and
unelected government imposed by Washington in Kiev. As Washington knows
that its threat of sanctions is empty, why did Washington make it?

The answer is in order to drive the crisis to war. Washington’s
neoconservative nazis have been agitating for war with Russia for a long
time. They want to remover one of the three remaining restraints
(Russia, China, Iran) on Washington’s world hegemony. Washington wants
to break up the BRICS (Brazil, Russia, India, China, South Africa)
before these countries form a separate currency bloc and avoid the use
of the US dollar.

Russia will respond in kind to Washington’s sanctions. European
peoples and Western banks and corporations will suffer losses. It would
be at least two or three years before Washington has in place means of
delivering US natural gas achieved by fracking and contamination of US
water supplies to Europe to take the place of Russia’s cutoff of energy
to Europe.

The Western presstitute media will dramatize the Russian response to
sanctions and demonize Russia, while ignoring who started the fight,
thereby helping Washington prepare Americans for war. As neither side
can afford to lose the war, nuclear weapons will be used. There will be
no winners.

All of this is perfectly clear, just as was the obvious conclusion of
the march of events leading up to World War 1. Now, like then, the
people who see the outcome are powerless to stop it. Delusion rules.
Arrogance and hubris overflow. Statements and actions become ever more
reckless, and then there is hell to pay.

Americans and Europeans, if they had any awareness at all, would be
in the streets violently protesting the coming war toward which the
insane criminals in Washington are driving the world.

Instead, the German chancellor, the French president, the British
prime minister and the Western presstitute media continue to lie: It
was legitimate for the West to steal Kosovo from Serbia and to steal the
Ukrainian government, but it is not legitimate for the Russian
population of Crimea to exercise self-determination and return to
Russia. Washington and its EU puppets even have the audacity to declare
falsely, after overthrowing an elected government in Ukraine and
installing an unelected one, that Crimean self-determination violates
the Ukrainian constitution, which no longer exists because Washington
destroyed it.

The criminally insane government in Washington has pushed the Russian bear into a corner. The bear is not going to surrender.

Willy Wimmer was state secretary at the German Defense Ministry and
vice president of the Organization for Security and Co-operation in
Europe (OSCE). This is what this well-informed member of the European
Establishment told RT: http://rt.com/op-edge/ukraine-west-international-law-966/ The translation is not very good, but the message comes through.

Western powers are following an agenda to partition the map of the
European region under which a portion of the Black Sea territory will be
under US domination, former vice president of the OSCE Parliamentary
Assembly, Willy Wimmer, told RT.

The veteran German politician, who served as a Defense Ministry state
secretary, reminded that no Western government is talking about the
extreme right element of the government in Kiev.

RT: More than a decade ago, you told your country’s leadership of a
disturbing connection between NATO’s bombing of Yugoslavia and plans for
the alliance’s expansion. We have some extracts from the letter you
wrote to then-Chancellor Gerhard Schröder after a conference organized
by the US State Department. You raised concerns over some of the
conclusions reached, such as: “It would be good, during NATO’s current
enlargement, to restore the territorial situation in the area between
the Baltic Sea and Anatolia (modern-day Turkey) such as existed during
the Roman Empire…” Do you think these plans still exist? And, if so,
could the Ukrainian crisis be playing a role?

Willy Wimmer: I think what I thought of Gerhard Schröder is similar
to Angela Merkel in May 2000 – is exactly what is going on in these
days. During the conference in Bratislava which was high ranking with
state presidents, prime ministers, defense, and foreign ministers, and
organized by the top leadership of the US State Department, they made a
proposal to draw a line between Riga on the Baltic Sea, Odessa on the
Black Sea, and Diyarbakir. All the territories west of this line should
be under US domination, and the territories east of this line – they
might be the Russian Federation or somebody else. That was the proposal –
and when we see developments since then, I think it’s like a schedule
which had been presented to the conference participants; everything
happens exactly as it was on the timetable in Bratislava.

RT: Let’s take a look at another passage from your letter: “In all
processes, peoples’ rights to self-determination should be favored over
all other provisions or rules of international law.” That seemed to be
agreed upon by high-profile Western diplomats taking part in that
conference – why such staunch opposition to Crimea holding a similar
referendum on its status now?

WW: Because they didn’t make it. What we saw since the middle of the
‘90s – I think caused all these problems we have here today. Until the
mid-90s, all major powers agreed in international law, and in
cooperation. But in the middle of the 90s, the US changed habits,
changed attitudes. They no longer pursed international law, they
proposed the law of the jungle. At the beginning was the war against
Yugoslavia, and since then, Afghanistan, Iraq, Syria, Libya, everything
is going because of these developments, and they no longer stick to
international law and to cooperation. They make use of military might
and this creates the trouble and the fear we have in Europe.

RT: Some argue that a referendum cannot be considered legitimate if it’s
not recognized by the interim authorities in Kiev. Let me ask you this –
is the current government in Ukraine legitimate?

WW: I think it was a putsch, a coup d’état, what happened in Kiev.
And what we heard in the news before – OSCE and other international
bodies are doing what they can to create a legal framework for a
government which is not legal at all.

The problem with this government is that they are not only not legal,
they are working together with people who will be forbidden sooner or
later by the Supreme Court here in Germany: right wing people, Nazis,
fascists. It is interesting and outstanding that no western government
is talking about these people who already created – once last century –
disaster, terror, and wars in Europe, and now these people come back…

RT: Why is the legality then not being questioned and indeed the nationalist, the extremist element within the Kiev government?

WW: Because these new Nazis are our ‘good Nazis’ now and this is disastrous for all of Europe.

RT: Are they a real threat? Because some people are exaggerating this
nationalist element within the Kiev government. Russia is really
concerned and indeed those people in Crimea and the east of the country.
Do they have fears that are justified?

WW: It’s not only the people in Ukraine or Crimea or in Russia; the
fear is in Dusseldorf, Cologne, Paris,and London as well. We did not
create this modern Europe to have these people back again.

RT: So what do you think the next step should be in this stalemate?
The West is calling on Russia to revoke its support for the referendum
in Crimea – do you believe that’s what Moscow should do?

WW: I live here in Germany and next Thursday, the federal Chancellor
Dr. Merkel will give a speech to the Bundestag about Ukraine and I
expect – I’m not referring to Crimea or to Moscow or to Kiev, I expect
here in Berlin – that she will address this Nazi question, that she will
address the massacre on Maidan Square. If this happened in China, there
would be an uproar in Western countries. Everybody is quiet here. Why
doesn’t the Council of Europe take into consideration to make an inquiry
as well as the OSCE? I expect Merkel to address these issues. And we
had a major party conference of our Bavarian brothers some days ago and
the main speaker addressed the audience with an appeal not to forget the
friendship with the Russian people.

No Jobs, No Economy, No Prospects For Peace Or Life

Over the decades various administrations, seeking to improve their
economic record, monkeyed with economic statistics to the point that the
statistics are no longer meaningful.

According to Friday's (March 7) payroll jobs report, the US economy
created 175,000 new jobs in February. If you believe that, I have a
bridge in Brooklyn that I'll let you have at a good price.

Even if 175,000 jobs were created in February -- remember now,
February was a cold month whose low temperatures are used to explain
poor housing and retail sales performance, yet somehow created 40,000
more jobs than needed to keep up with population growth -- that is an
insufficient amount to drop the unemployment rate.

To see how screwed up US economic statistics are, consider the
reported unemployment rate (U.3) of 6.7 percent in comparison with the
fact that there are about 6 million Americans who have been unable to
find a job and are no longer counted as unemployed. These millions of
unemployed are not included in the reported rate of unemployment.

John Williams (shadowstats.com) reports that the true rate of US unemployment is around 23 percent.

Rather than examine the issue, the presstitute financial media
trumpets the government's propaganda. In America there is no more of a
financial media, except for Pam Martens and Nomi Prins, than a print and
TV media.

The Economic Policy Institute reports that there are 1,360,000
unemployed men and women under the age of 25, 2,8000,000 unemployed men
and women aged 25-54, and 1,640,000 unemployed men and women 55 and over
who are not counted as unemployed, because they have been unable to
find a job after searching a long time and have given up looking.

Just as "your" government and "your" prostitute media lie to you
about Ukraine, Putin, Saddam Hussein, Gaddafi, Iran, Pakistan, Yemen,
Palestine, NSA, spying, torture, 9/11, Obamacare, and literally
everything under the sun, "your" government lies to you about the
economy and hides from you the perilous state of your economic
existence. If you are not among the One Percent, you have no future in
America.

Let us have a look at the 175,000 claimed jobs. Are these the
promised high-paying jobs of the "New Economy" that Washington and its
economist pimps guaranteed us would take the place of the offshored
manufacturing and tradable professional service jobs?

Afraid not. In the many years that I have been observing the monthly
payroll jobs reports and the BLS's future jobs projections, I have never
seen even one of the "New Economy" jobs. They simply do not exist. Yet,
the economics profession, an extremely deluded collection of morons,
still believes in these jobs.

Again -- how many times have I reported this same result -- here are the jobs of the "New Economy":

Of the 175,000 jobs claimed, 13,000 are taxpayer-supported government jobs.Of the 162,000 private sector jobs claimed, a mere 22,000 or 13.6%
are goods-producing jobs, of which 15,000 or 68% are in construction The
other 140,000 are service jobs.

Are these service jobs the promised high-pay "New Economy" jobs? No,
but judge for yourself -- 14,800 are jobs in wholesale trade. Food and
beverage stores accounted for 12,000 new jobs. The Federal Reserve
accounted for 7,800 jobs in order to continue rigging every financial
market, thus replacing capitalism with Federal Reserve Central Planning.
Accounting and bookkeeping services (it is tax time) gave the economy a
short-lived 15,700 jobs. There were 24,400 temporary help jobs. The old
standby, education and health services, delivered 33,000 jobs. Leisure
and hospitality produced 25,000 jobs of which 21,200 are waitresses and
bartenders who live on tips.

This has been the jobs profile of the "world's only superpower" for
the entirety of the 21st century. Washington, wallowing in its arrogance
and hubris, is unconcerned with its economic base. Washington believes
its own propaganda about the (non-existent) recovery and America's
economic power.

Consequently, the ignorant and stupid American government is now
challenging Russia with a strategic intervention in Russia's back yard.

This supporter of the Ukraine joining the EU has received her reward: a 50% cut in her pension.

According to a report in Kommersant-Ukraine, the finance ministry of
Washington’s stooges in Kiev who are pretending to be a government has
prepared an economic austerity plan that will cut Ukrainian pensions
from $160 to $80 so that Western bankers who lent money to Ukraine can
be repaid at the expense of Ukraine’s poor. http://www.kommersant.ua/doc/2424454 It is Greece all over again.

Before anything approaching stability and legitimacy has been
obtained for the puppet government put in power by the Washington
orchestrated coup against the legitimate, elected Ukraine government,
the Western looters are already at work. Naive protesters who believed
the propaganda that EU membership offered a better life are due to lose
half of their pension by April. But this is only the beginning.

The corrupt Western media describes loans as “aid.” However, the 11
billion euros that the EU is offering Kiev is not aid. It is a loan.
Moreover, it comes with many strings, including Kiev’s acceptance of an
IMF austerity plan.

Remember now, gullible Ukrainians participated in the protests that
were used to overthrow their elected government, because they believed
the lies told to them by Washington-financed NGOs that once they joined
the EU they would have streets paved with gold. Instead they are getting
cuts in their pensions and an IMF austerity plan.

The austerity plan will cut social services, funds for education,
layoff government workers, devalue the currency, thus raising the prices
of imports which include Russian gas, thus electricity, and open
Ukrainian assets to takeover by Western corporations.

Ukraine’s agriculture lands will pass into the hands of American agribusiness.

One part of the Washington/EU plan for Ukraine, or that part of
Ukraine that doesn’t defect to Russia, has succeeded. What remains of
the country will be thoroughly looted by the West.

The other part hasn’t worked as well. Washington’s Ukrainian stooges
lost control of the protests to organized and armed ultra-nationalists.
These groups, whose roots go back to those who fought for Hitler during
World War 2, engaged in words and deeds that sent southern and eastern
Ukraine clamoring to be returned to Russia where they resided prior to
the 1950s when the Soviet communist party stuck them into Ukraine.

At this time of writing it looks like Crimea has seceded from
Ukraine. Washington and its NATO puppets can do nothing but bluster and
threaten sanctions. The White House Fool has demonstrated the impotence
of the “US sole superpower” by issuing sanctions against unknown
persons, whoever they are, responsible for returning Crimea to Russia,
where it existed for about 200 years before, according to Solzhenitsyn, a
drunk Khrushchev of Ukrainian ethnicity moved southern and eastern
Russian provinces into Ukraine. Having observed the events in western
Ukraine, those Russian provinces want to go back home where they belong,
just as South Ossetia wanted nothing to do with Georgia.

Washington’s stooges in Kiev can do nothing about Crimea except
bluster. Under the Russian-Ukraine agreement, Russia is permitted 25,000
troops in Crimea. The US/EU media’s deploring of a “Russian invasion of
16,000 troops” is either total ignorance or complicity in Washington’s
lies. Obviously, the US/EU media is corrupt. Only a fool would rely on
their reports. Any media that would believe anything Washington says
after George W. Bush and Dick Cheney sent Secretary of State Colin
Powell to the UN to peddle the regime’s lies about “Iraqi weapons of
mass destruction,” which the weapons inspectors had told the White House
did not exist, is clearly a collection of bought-and-paid for whores.

In the former Russian provinces of eastern Ukraine, Putin’s low-key
approach to the strategic threat that Washington has brought to Russia
has given Washington a chance to hold on to a major industrial complex
that serves the Russian economy and military. The people themselves in
eastern Ukraine are in the streets demanding separation from the
unelected government that Washington’s coup has imposed in Kiev.
Washington, realizing that its incompetence has lost Crimea, had its
Kiev stooges appoint Ukrainian oligarchs, against whom the Maiden
protests were partly directed, to governing positions in eastern Ukraine
cities. These oligarchs have their own private militias in addition to
the police and any Ukrainian military units that are still functioning.
The leaders of the protesting Russians are being arrested and
disappeared. Washington and its EU puppets, who proclaim their support
for self-determination, are only for self-determination when it can be
orchestrated in their favor. Therefore, Washington is busy at work
suppressing self-determination in eastern Ukraine.

This is a dilemma for Putin. His low-key approach has allowed
Washington to seize the initiative in eastern Ukraine. The oligarchs
Taruta and Kolomoyskiy have been put in power in Donetsk and
Dnipropetrovsk, and are carrying out arrests of Russians and committing
unspeakable crimes, but you will never hear of it from the US
presstitutes. Washington’s strategy is to arrest and deep-six the
leaders of the secessionists so that there no authorities to request
Putin’s intervention.

If Putin has drones, he has the option of taking out Taruta and
Kolomoyskiy. If Putin lets Washington retain the Russian provinces of
eastern Ukraine, he will have demonstrated a weakness that Washington
will exploit. Washington will exploit the weakness to the point that
Washington forces Putin to war.

About Me

B.S. in Physics, Carnegie-Mellon University, 1960 Ph.D. in Physics, Brown University, 1966. Fellow, American Physical
Society. Fellow, American Association for the Advancement of Science.
Fellow, American Ceramic Society. Member, Geological Society of America, Research Physicist at Naval Research Laboratory (NRL), Washington, DC,
1967-2001. Fulbright-García Robles Fellow at Universidad Nacional
Autónoma de México, 1997. Invited Professor of Research at Universités
de Paris-6 & 7, Lyon-1, et St-Etienne (France) and Tokyo Institute
of Technology, 2000-2004. Adjunct Professor of Materials Science and
Engineering, University of Arizona, 2004-2005. Consultancy: impactGlass
research international, 2005-present.
Winner, one national and two international research awards and honored
by Brown University with a "Distinguished Graduate School Alumnus
Award." Author, 198 papers in peer-reviewed journals and books, Principal Author of 114 of these.